


Talk to Me

by kyrieanne



Category: The Brave (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 07:17:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13382874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrieanne/pseuds/kyrieanne
Summary: “Talk to me. I’ll even listen to stories about the stars.”Dalton knows what serves her in the field isn’t going to solve Jaz’s problem. What happened to her is too big, too overwhelming, to process just by breathing in and out.





	Talk to Me

“Talk to me.” Jaz whispers it without turning her head toward him. 

 

Adam stills. Of course she’d heard him. Jaz could be the quietest of all of them when she wanted, and in turn she had cat-like ears. When he came upon her there in the hanger he’d hoped to retreat back to his room. Sleep is impossible and that’s why he came out here in the middle of the night. Staring up at the ceiling of his room only coiled the muscles in his gut tighter. If he made a sandwich and stared at the pile of paperwork then at least he could pretend he was taking action on something. But then he found her here in the dark with only a single lamp lit, probably left on by McG, and he was going to retreat except it is Jaz and she hears everything. 

 

When they made it back to base McG had moved to escort Jaz toward medical, but Adam waved him off. He followed a step behind her. She didn’t need him to get there, but he wasn’t ready to leave her. He’d leaned against the wall of the exam room as the doctor and nurse treated Jaz’s injuries, and he silently catalogued the raw skin on her wrists and ankles, the bruises across her back and ribs, and the congealed blood where they sliced her like she was a piece of meat to carve. Her injuries told him that her captors had wanted the pain to break her slowly, not quickly, but thoroughly and totally. Adam let these observations settle into his gut without meeting Jaz’s gaze. She hadn’t looked at him anyways. She stared off toward the corner of the room, lost in thoughts he couldn’t anticipate, and that terrified him. Then doctor cleared her throat and looked at Adam. He knew it meant he couldn’t stay for the next part. 

 

“No one touched me like that,” Jazz whispered. 

 

“It’s okay -,” the doctor said, and Adam started to leave, but Jaz finally looked at him and he stilled. 

 

“They were going to. Before they executed me. At least that’s what I think he was insinuating, but it never happened. I killed him before he had the chance.” 

 

Now she is curled up, tucked into a corner of the couch, with her chin on her knees, arms hugging her legs tight to her as if she can contain everything she is feeling into the smallest space possible. It isn’t until Adam steps closer to round the couch does he realize she’s trembling. 

 

“Talk to me,” she repeats and this time there is a catch in her voice. 

 

Adam unzips the hoodie he’s wearing and hands it to her as he sinks down on the other end of the couch. She slips it on and rather than zip it up she pulls either side tight across her so it overlaps. She tucks her hands into the cuffs and curls back into the position he found her in. Adam knows the shaking isn’t from being cold, but as he watches her she breathes deep, tucking her chin into the fabric of his sweatshirt, and the shaking subsides a little bit with each exhale. He’s has seen her do this dozens of times, assert control over her body through long, languid breaths even when she feels the opposite. That kind of minute control was essential for a sniper in the field:  to slow their own racing heart, still their whirring mind, take slow and even breaths, and focus. 

 

But he knows what serves her in the field isn’t going to solve Jaz’s problem. What happened to her is too big, too overwhelming, to process just by breathing in and out. 

 

“Remember Seville?” He says, and this earns him Jaz’s attention. It’s just a tilt of her head, but she looks at him from the side, and he takes that as permission to keep going. “Cassiopeia. Cephus. They had a daughter, Andromeda.” 

 

“New York, remember.” 

 

Adam smiles, “They’re still there even if you can’t see them, the stars.” 

 

He tells her the story:  Andromeda was known as the chained lady, the beautiful daughter of Cepheus. Her mother Cassiopeia bragged Andromeda was more beautiful than the daughters of the sea god Poseidon. Angered, Poseidon battered Andromeda’s homeland with storms until her king-father decided to sacrifice his daughter to a sea monster hoping to appease the gods. So he chained her to a rock and left her there to die. 

 

“That’s the story you decided to tell me? Now?” Jaz huffs. 

 

There she is - the flash of incredulity that makes her Jaz - and it prompts him to slouch further into the couch and extend one leg toward her. His feet don’t quite reach the edge of side of her leg, but the distance is mere inches now. The proximity allows him to exhale deeper even if he isn’t actually touching her. 

 

“You didn’t let me get to the best part,” Adam says, “Andromeda was rescued by a hero named Perseus, and their children would become the Persian people. And when she died, Athena, placed her in the northern sky, fixing her in the position she had when chained to that rock, but near her husband and her mother.” 

 

“How is that the best part?” 

 

She pushes herself up and stalks over to the fridge. Silence lapses between them as Jaz pulls two beers out, twists the lids off, and hands one to Adam before sinking back down onto the couch. This time she doesn’t hug her knees to her chest and keep her profile to him. Instead, she drapes an arm along the back of the couch and folds her legs so her feet fit between his own. Adam forces himself to look away from the casual invitation into personal space they both initiated. 

 

“Cause it’s a story,” he says, “That’s it. A story about some stars. It’s not more powerful than what you choose to give it.” 

 

Jaz snorts and takes a swig of her beer. 

 

“I rescued me,” she says. 

 

Adam nods, and he can see the words work across her face. He knows Jaz doesn’t cry easily, but that’s not because her emotions are buried or non-existent. It’s her sniper training that keeps the tears held in check. Jaz Khan isn’t going to cry unless she wants to. 

 

“Thank you,” she says, “for rescuing me.” 

 

“Jaz,” 

 

“I need to say it. Thank you.” 

 

Adam can’t bring himself to say you’re welcome because that wasn’t how this worked - their team - and especially not him and Jaz. Instead, he took a swig of beer. 

 

“Jarif is dead,” she whispers. It’s said more to herself than him. 

 

“That was the mission.” 

 

Jaz pulls the sides of his sweatshirt tighter across her chest. “Hossein is dead too.” She pauses. “I rescued me, but you guys did too. The mission was a success, but…” 

 

“But Hossein is dead,” Adam finishes for her. 

 

She nods. He is tempted to reach forward and pull her into his lap, but he doesn’t. 

 

“You’d think I’d get used to it by now.” 

 

“To what?” 

 

“To the way this job is always more complicated than...than a win being a win. It’s always a loss too. I thought I’d accepted that.” Jaz tugs on cuffs of his sweatshirt, curling and uncurling her fists around them.

 

“But not tonight.” 

 

“No,” she whispers, “not tonight.” 

 

Adam can see the tears shimmer in her eyes, but Jaz doesn’t let them fall. 

  
  
  


*** 

 

Jaz knew she’d be grounded. Her body needed time to heal, and there would the requisite talks with the shrink. With Patricia stuck in DIA’s bureaucracy their whole team had been sidelined for weeks, a fact Jaz tried to apologize for until McG told her to shut-up between bites of Amir’s cooking. 

 

Then comes the hostage crisis and Hannah Rivera and the reality of being grounded hits Jaz. It sucks. 

 

To her credit, she didn’t let herself feel sorry for herself until her team is home safe and the mission complete. Still, it’s hard to sit around the table while her team tells her about their time in the field over drinks. They fold Hannah into the storytelling rhythm that they have, laughing when she calls McG out for exaggerating his own heroics, and Jaz laughs too. 

 

But there is jealousy curdling in her stomach.  She knows being grounded is temporary, and that Hannah Rivera hasn’t taken her spot. There was no need to feel territorial over these guys and their work. Jaz knows this, but still she drops her eyes to the cup in her hand the next time there is laughter around the table. This time it’s Amir who earned Hannah’s teasing and Jaz puts on a smile when Hannah looks her way. 

 

“They missed you out there,” she says. 

 

Jaz knows Hannah is trying to be nice, and if she wasn’t in such a sullen mood, the two women would be easy allies around the table tonight. Hell, if Jaz made friends quickly they’d probably end up that too. But tonight she feels like a middle schooler, and Jaz hates that even if she can’t shake the feelings. 

 

“We did.”

 

Top says it in that way he has, the intentional nonchalance that makes whatever words he’s saying sound more real than if someone else had. Jaz’s stomach turns over, and this time it isn’t from jealousy or anything like it. It’s the feeling of his eyes on her and how quiet he’s been all night. He sees her tonight - the feelings she doesn’t want to have - and Jaz doesn’t know what to think. 

 

Preach raises his beer, “To always being a team no matter where we are.” 

 

It’s the kind of thing only Preach can get away with saying, but everyone clinks their glasses and Top looks away from her. Jaz exhales a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. 

 

*** 

 

“Talk to me.” 

 

Adam is the one to say it this time. Jaz turns her head and he’s rewarded with a smile. It isn’t the one that reaches her eyes, but it’s a good sign. When he climbs up onto the hood of the jeep where she is stretched out against the windshield Adam notices that she’s wearing his sweatshirt. He never got it back and she never offered. It’s zipped this time, but it still slides off one shoulder that is bare except for the strap of her tank top. 

 

Jaz stares up at the sky, “That story you told me, the one about Andromeda…”  

 

Adam settles back against the windshield so they are lying side by side. This is hardly the first time he’s done this with a woman, laid out and looked up at the darkened firmament, but with her it’s different. 

 

He recalls the conversation where she told him he was her only CO that didn’t see a woman first, and Adam is proud of that fact. He guards it because he wants it to remain true always. Jaz deserves that fact to be true. 

 

Still, his eyes drop down to that shoulder where his sweatshirt has slipped. Adam clears his throat, “It probably wasn’t the best thing to say right then.”  

 

“I’ve been thinking about her. About me,” she turns her head toward him. 

 

There’s a glint of gold on her ears. Once in a while she’ll wear jewelry when the team goes out to celebrate, trinkets she’s picked out from open air markets in her freetime. But since she’s been grounded she’s taken to wearing small gold studs around the hanger when she wasn’t working out to regain her strength. Adam wonders why. 

 

Jaz pivots so she is lying on her side facing Adam and he does the same. They mirror one another without touching except for where his sweatshirt, warm from her body, brushes his arm. 

 

Jaz exhales. “When he told me my government had given me up as a spy I didn’t believe him, but then they put me in that van and we started to drive toward the prison and I knew it was true.” 

 

“Jaz -,” 

 

But she keeps going, and he holds perfectly still. “I keep thinking about Andromeda left out on that rock, a sacrifice offered up by men. There was a moment in that van that I thought it was true. That I’d been abandoned.”  

 

Adam tugs on the sleeve of his sweatshirt until he can capture her hand in his own. Her smaller fist is enveloped by both of his and he waits until her eyes tip up to meet his gaze. 

 

“We got you,” he says, “I’ve got you.” 

 

“I know that.”

 

“Good,” Adam tries to make his voice gruff. They return to lying on their backs, but when Adam starts to loosen his grip on Jaz’s hand she interlocks their fingers. He chooses to not think too hard about it. They need the anchor.

 

“I think Amir has a crush on Hannah.” Jaz says. 

 

The face Adam makes causes her to laugh loud and clear. 

 

“Why in the world would you think that?” he sputters. 

 

Jaz shrugs, “From the way he watched her when she was talking and when she left he hung back. He only hugged her cause Preach did first.” 

 

“First off, that is entirely conjecture, and second, they don’t even know each other.” 

 

“You sound like such a dad,” Jaz smirks. “They know each other enough to have a crush.” 

 

“There’s no way you saw all that,” Adam says, “Amir is not that obvious.” 

 

“You’re just salty cause you didn’t notice it first.” 

 

Adam acquiesces the point and they lapse into comfortable silence. Adam looks at her profile:  the glint of gold, the bare shoulder, and their hands loosely linked between them. 

 

Jaz sighs, “Spit it out, Top.” 

 

“The earrings?” 

 

She raises an eyebrow. That clearly wasn’t what she thought he’d say. 

 

“In the van, I had this thought that I wanted more, you know, than to end up like that. It wasn’t regret. It was more,” she stops and licks her lips. “It was more like something settled into place. I worked for so many years to leave behind my shit childhood, to make it in the army, to be the best, to do work I was proud of and all of that lead to me being in that van. When I thought this really might be it, that it was just me by myself, the thing I kept thinking was I want more.” 

 

A panic ripples through Adam as she pauses. It’s a panic that the next words were going to be  _ I’m done _ . He doesn’t realize it but his grip on her hand tightens. 

 

But it’s not that. It’s simpler and more complicated than that. Jaz turns her head away from Adam and looks up at the sky. “I don’t know what more is. The shrink says what happened to me is bound to change me. Maybe that’s it. I just feel different. I think I’m changing. That’s what the earrings are about. They’re a change I can handle today. Whatever else comes, well, we’ll see.” 

 

He doesn’t know what to say; she’s right. Things are changing around them, and he needs to face it. But he isn’t going to do that tonight because Jaz squeezes his hand and smiles that smile that reaches her eyes.

 

“Talk to me. I’ll even listen to stories about the stars.” 

  
  



End file.
